(yWeekend)
University and Secondary Students Were The Main Forces in Citizen Translations
of Harry Potter Book 7. By Xu Fan (徐帆).
July 26, 2007.

[in translation]

On July 21, 2007, <Harry Potter and the
Deathly Hallows> (hereafter abbreviated to <Harry Potter 7>) was
released around the world simultaneously. An unprecedented Harry Potter
mania then seized the world. Since the initially released version was
the English-language version, many people who could not read English began to
search for translations on the Internet.

Our reporter researched the subject and was
surprised to learn that

There are more than a dozen
Chinese-language translations of <Harry Potter 7> on the Internet,
but most of them were partial translations of only certain
chapters.

A so-called <Harry Potter 7 Bar
Official Translation Team> (hereafter abbreviated to <Harry Potter 7
Bar Translation Team> consisting of almost 60 people had actually
completed the translation of the entire book on the evening of July 23,
just two days after the global release of the official version and almost
three months before the publication of the official translation from the
People's Publishing House. But this electronic book has already met
pirates who appropriated the work as an original creation.

The earliest Chinese-language translation
of the ending of <Harry Potter 7> might have been done by a
second-year secondary student in Guangdong province.

When the reporter went to search for
Chinese-language translations of <Harry Potter 7> on the Internet, he
found out that the most popular version might be the one by the <Harry Potter 7
Bar Translation Team>. This team is also known as the Hogwarts Translation
Academy or the Hogwarts Translation Team. In their electronic book,
there are signatures for the translator, editor and reviewer (usually Internet
aliases) in front of each chapter. If you click on the
"refresh" button, you can get to the latest revision.

The person who was in charge of recruiting
the translators and publishing the updates was the Baidu bar operator of the
<Harry Potter 7 Bar>. His nickname is Ziyang Xiami. When the
reporter reached this bar operator, he was astonished to find that it was just
a first-year high school student who preferred the reporter to call him Fellow
Student Xiao Wang.

He told the reporter: "Based upon past
practice, whenever a new Harry Potter book came out, there were many spontaneously
organized translation teams. Most of the volunteer translators are not
very good with their English and it is hard for a single person to complete
the task. But the Chinese-language translation from the Humanities Press
usually take almost 3 months before it comes out. Few Harry Potter fans
could wait that long. We did this spontaneously on a voluntary basis
because we want the Harry Potter fans to read the book earlier. Since
2003 when <Harry Potter 4> came out, translation teams have appeared on
the Internet.

"Actually, we had obtained a MS Word
file of the English-language original on July 18. But some of the core
administrative members of the team reached the consensus that we will respect
the original. Therefore, we held back and began only on July 21 when the
book was released officially around the
world."

When did the <Harry Potter 7 Bar> begin
to prepare for the translation team? Xiao Wang said: "Since July 2,
the three or four core members had been working separately to make posts on
the Internet for volunteer translators. During the earlier recruitment
process, we came across another translation team. I spoke to the person
in charge over there, and we decided to coalesce into a single team.

"My principal duty is in
recruitment. On an average day, about 30 people leave their QQ numbers
to join. About 200 volunteers have contacted me. We had to give
tests to these people. The test material came from English-language
paragraphs about Harry Potter taken from overseas websites. Those
paragraphs do not appear in the Harry Potter novels themselves.
Afterwards, we checked the quality of the translation. We recruited two
waves of people, in which about 60 people passed the test. We set up a
work schedule of based upon division of labor. Basically, there are four
or five people per group. The translation in each chapter has to go
through translation, editing, proof-reading and final review. This is to
ensure the quality of the translation."

So why kind of English-language skills must
the translators have? Our reporter asked Xiao Wang to go through the
list. Xiao Wang looked at the names and said: "These people are
mostly university students. They are basically second- or third-year
students."

The reporter naturally conjectured:
"More from the English Department?" Xiao Wang replied:
"No. We have fewer from the English Departments. These
applicants have basically stated that they passed Grade Four or Grade Six in
university English. The English majors tend to go for Specialty Grade
Four or Specialty Grade Eight, and they don't go out for Grade Four or Grade
Six. Actually, people outside the English Department can do
translations. Take me as an example. I am still a first-year high
school student, but I have no problems with reading the original novel.
There are some terms that I have to consult the dictionary for, but I can
basically read the novel fluently."

It was even more astonishing as Xiao Wang
went through the other translators: "There are about 20 high school
students. They are mainly third-year high school students who are on
summer vacation after taking the university entrance examinations. Among
us, there are about seven or eight who have previously participated in
translating Harry Potter books. For the majority, this was their first
participation in a large-scale translation project. Previously, they had
only done some translations for practice during their spare time."

The <Harry Potter 7 Bar Translation
Team> was obviously not the only group who were turning passionate Harry
Potter fans to do spontaneously organized translations. This reporter
went to a number of Internet forums with large concentrations of Harry Potter
fans and found several stylistically different versions of uneven quality.

At Baidu's <Harry Potter 7 Bar>, the
reporter went through more than 60 pages of posts and found out that there are
five or six Chinese-language translations of the ending of <Harry Potter
7>. For the curious Harry Potter fans, they were most concerned about
the ending for Harry Potter and his friends. Therefore, the postlude
from the middle-aged Harry Potter nineteen years later may be the earliest
part that was translated and posted on the Internet.

The reporter turned over the various versions
that he had gathered to Beijing's Hengjin Hengtai Information Technology
Limited Company so that they could used a newly developed software for
document search. The conclusion was that the first appearance was at a
translation post at <Energy Bar> by ID "TONYMAK" at 20:09 on
July 16.

When the reporter interviewed Xiao Wang, he
said that the best translation of the ending was a post at <Energy
Bar>. The translation was the same one that the reporter found.
When the reporter asked: "Could he be the first Chinese person to
translate the ending of <Harry Potter 7>? Xiao Wang said:
"Very likely. Very likely. The <Energy Bar> is a
community which is mainly about Harry Potter and it is very timely on
information related to <Harry Potter 7>. Based upon the
circumstances surrounding the post, this person posted the Chinese translation
of the ending of <Harry Potter 7> at 20:09, July 16. He made
certain improvements over the next few days. The final version was dated
July 20."

Xiao Wang was talking to the reporter by
telephone while he was browsing the Internet. Suddenly, he cried out:
"Heavens! There is a problem at <Energy Bar>. They are
carrying our work without authorization."

Upon inquiry by our reporter, Xiao Wang
explained: "We have a community in which we publish the latest
translations. Only our workers are authorized to enter the area.
We are presently telling the world that we have translated up to Chapter 14,
but we have actually completed the entire translation."

The reporter was shocked. At noon on
the same day, the reporter was in contact with Xiao Wang and he said that they
had not yet finished the translation. But now Xiao Wang said that he had
misspoken. He had to explain that they acted responsibly and did not
want to release the news prematurely. He said: Our steps are to
translate, edit, proof-read and review. We have gone through all 36
chapters with the translation and editing steps. We are almost done with
the proof-reading and reviewing of chapters 15 to 36. We are relatively
slow in our release because we want to act responsibly towards our
readers. If we wanted to release as soon as we were done with the
translation, we could have done so on Monday evening."

The reporter pressed with the question:
"As of now, how many times has this version been downloaded?"

Xiao Wang said: "We do not have the
numbers for now. There were too many people downloading on Monday
evening. We were forced to shut down the server due to excessive
traffic. This server is a personal space with about 100M per day
allowed. The book runs around 100K. This means that after 10,000
people downloaded the book, the traffic quota for the day will be exhausted
and late coming netizens will no longer be able to download. Since the
hit rate is so high, we now have several different downloading
addresses. Over the past couple of days, we were checking the
Internet. About 80% of the versions were our translations. I can
say that we have the Chinese-language translation that is getting the highest
attention on the Internet."

Due to his high level of attention, their
work has been "pirated." Xiao Wang told the reporter: "In
each chapter of our electronic book, we have the names of our translation
team. Some people downloaded the book, reproduced our contents while
deleting the names and then they posted to the Internet again. We are
helpless because this is beyond our control.

So has Xiao Wang considered that their
efforts may also make the People's Publishing House which owns the rights to
publish the translation of <Harry Potter 7> feel helpless?

Xiao Wang had obviously been asked this
questions many times already: "Earlier, netizens spoke to us about this
and we consulted the relevant laws and regulations. There was one that
says: For purposes of appreciation, exchange, learning and discussion,
translations may be made without the authorization of the original
authors. But the name of the original work and the name of the author
must be made known. We have definitely done that. I don't think
that there will be a lot of trouble. I have personally called the
Humanities Press."

But the response from Humanities Press
was somewhat vague, and this reporter can tell that Xiao Wang has some
worries: "Many translation posts are disappearing without
explanation. The situation is worst at Baidu's "Harry Potter
Bar." Things are slightly better at the "Harry Potter 7
Bar" which has probably not received the highest level of
attention. We are not posting the original text, just the
hyperlinks. How shall I say? They are protecting their rights,
while we only wanted to let Harry Potter fans read the book earlier. We
are doing this purely out of passion and not for money. Some of our
translators keep working until 3am.

"Actually, I feel that we have very
little impact on the official translation of the book. Genuine Harry
Potter friends will always want to buy the official version, because the
quality is better and they want to collect it. I had done a poll at the
<Harry Potter 7 Bar> about how Harry Potter fans want to read <Harry Potter 7>.
More than 100 persons participated, of which almost 70 want to buy the
official Chinese-language translation. Only 2 persons said that they
will only read the Internet translation."

Through the technical search on the person
"TONYMAK" at <Energy Bar> as well as the opinions of veteran
Harry Potter fans, that seems to be the best person who translated the ending
of <Harry Potter 7>. This reporter was able to reach him before
the article deadline. His translation was praised by netizens as being
fluent and excellent. The surprising thing was that he was just a
second-year high school student in Guangdong province. "The school
will start tutorial lessons in a couple of days, so I am trying to do my
summer homework right now."

When the reporter informed him that he may be
the first person who translated the ending of <Harry Potter 7>, he
sounded befuddled: "I don't know about that. Actually, on July 15
or thereabouts, I saw someone post a translation of the scan image of
<Harry Potter 7>. I thought that it was very fuzzy with lousy
translations in some places. When a clearer version came out, I made a
revision. I only wanted people to see the Chinese-language translation
earlier."

This was not the first time that TONYMAK
translated <Harry Potter 7>. In 2005, when the English-language
version of <Harry Porter 6> went on sale, he was a third-year junior
high school student and he bought a copy of the book. At the request
from fellow students, he began to translate the whole book. "It was
very demanding work to do the translation. I translated chapter by
chapter. By the time that I reached about two-thirds of the way, I could
not go any further. I have no plans on translating all of <Harry
Potter 7>. I have a lot of homework to do, and the summer tutorials
will start soon."

When people like TONYMAK translate the ending
of the leaked version of <Harry Potter 7>, is he guilty of violation of
intellectual property rights? Lawyer Zheng Yan of the Beijing Haotian
Xinhe Legal Office told this reporter: "Suppose that <Harry Potter
7> was released prematurely by overseas booksellers and that overseas
netizens obtained the scan images of the original book through legal
means. If the translation is done by netizens who include their own
creativity and knowledge and they are not doing this for profit, there is no
rights violation."

Previously, the media had interviewed the
People's Publishing House about whether the Internet translations violated
their rights. Director Sun Xunlin of the Planning Department said that
most of the Internet translations are not doing so for profit and therefore
they cannot be censured. But many of the websites that disseminate those
translations do so for profit. Therefore, the Internet service providers
should be deleting those posts. Sun Xunlin expressed his worry that the
enthusiasm of Harry Potter fans may be used by commercial pirates to make
money for themselves, thus affecting the sales of the official
Chinese-language edition.

(New
York Times) Lots of Harry Potter books in China, not all of them
by the author. By Howard French. July 31, 2007.

China could not wait for the official release
date of the seventh book in the worldwide Harry Potter publishing franchise, a
little more than a week ago. It came out here with an identical title a full
10 days before the official worldwide English language release - in a wholly
unauthorized version.

Chinese writers and their fans are not having
it with the idea that the seventh installment is the last word in the
best-selling series, either. No one can say with any certainty what the full
tally is, but there are easily a dozen fake Harry Potters on the market here
already, and that is counting only bound versions of the mystery/adventure
stories that are sold on street corners and can even be found in school
libraries. Still more versions exist online.

Although they may bear her name, the
proliferation of Harry Potter books here has nothing in common with the
originator of the series, the British author J.K. Rowling, save for the
appropriation of her famous characters' names. Here, the global Harry Potter
phenomenon has mutated into something altogether Chinese: a combination of
remarkable imagination and startling industriousness, all placed in the
service of counterfeiting, literary fraud and copyright violation.

Wang Lili, editor of the China Braille
Publishing House, which published "Harry Potter and the Chinese Porcelain
Doll" in 2002, one of the numerous knockoffs here, said: "We
published the book out of a very common incentive. Harry Potter was so popular
that we wanted to enjoy the fruits of its widely accepted publicity in
China."

The attitude reflected in Wang's comment goes
a long way toward explaining not only the explosion of unauthorized Harry
Potter literature in China, but also the much larger problem of rampant piracy
in China, where travelers can find six different knockoffs of Viagra - without
prescription - on display at airport drugstores, and where fake DVDs, fake
Picassos, fake bottled water, fake cellphones and even near-identical copies
of automobile models are widely available.

China has recently stepped up efforts to rein
in the production, and especially the export, of fraudulent, dangerous and
substandard goods, in the face of strong criticism from the United States and
the European Union. Authors and editors say, however, that the sphere of
literature and publishing is, at best, an afterthought.

Wei Bin, editor of the Writers' Publishing
House, which investigates book piracy, said that his group's last survey, in
2001, showed that as many as 30 to 40 percent of the books on sale in China
may be pirated.

"The focus of the government is not to
fight against piracy," Wei said. "It seems they fight harder for
banned publications, like pornography, political books, such as things written
about the leadership, the government, and historical matters like the Cultural
Revolution, the Anti-Rightist Campaign.

"They maintain tight control over such
things, but as literary books, such as the ones we identify as being pirated,
when we report the matter to the relevant authorities, they settle matters by
leaving them unsettled."

An Boshun, editor of one of the
biggest-selling works of Chinese fiction in recent years, "Wolf
Totem," whose author has maintained his anonymity, said there were at
least 15 million fake copies of the book in circulation here, compared with
two million legal ones.

"I once even got a call from someone who
said that he represented two pirate book businessmen and they wanted him to
say thanks to me for my work," An said. "They wanted me to know that
'Wolf Totem' had brought many job opportunities to country folks working in
printing shops in Hebei and Shandong Provinces."

The zest with which the Potter series has
been copied can be seen in the titles available for sale in China.

These include "Harry Potter and the
Half-Blooded Relative Prince," whose name in Chinese closely resembles a
genuine title in the series, as well as many others that are pure inventions,
blending everything from story lines lifted from J.R.R. Tolkien, to plots and
snippets taken from famous kung fu epics and characters from Chinese literary
classics, like "Journey to the West."

Although not exhaustive, the list includes
"Harry Potter and the Hiking Dragon," "Harry Potter and the
Chinese Empire," "Harry Potter and the Young Heroes,"
"Rich Dad, Poor Dad and Harry Potter," "Harry Potter and
Leopard-Walk-up-to-Dragon," "Harry Potter and the Big Funnel,"
"Harry Potter and the Golden Armor," "Harry Potter and the
Crystal Vase," and on and on.

In a story heard from one publisher after
another, Wang said she was introduced to an aspiring author by a third party.

"I did not believe it at first, since it
only took the person 20 days to write 200,000 words," she added.
"But after reading it, I found that it was not bad. The author did not
plagiarize Rowling's novels because the story was full of his own imagination.
There was creativity and even magic in some of the plotting."

The iterations of Potter fraud and imitation
are so copious they must be peeled back by the layer.

As in some other countries, there are
unauthorized translations of real Harry Potter books and sometimes more than
one version of a particular title may be available here.

There are books masquerading as works written
by Rowling. There are copies of the genuine items - both English and Chinese -
scanned, reprinted, bound and sold for a fraction of the authorized texts.

There are Harry Potter books published under
names, real or assumed, of Chinese authors. There are books published under
the imprint of major, established Chinese publishing houses, which the
publishers themselves claim no knowledge of. And there are books by budding
Chinese writers hoping to piggyback the series' fame and make it as authors,
sometimes only to have their fake Potters copied and distributed by
underground publishers who, naturally, pay them no royalties.

"I bought Harry Potter 1-6 for my son a
couple of years ago, and when he finished reading them he kept asking me to
tell him what happens next," said Li Jingsheng, one such author, a
manager at a Shanghai textile factory. "We couldn't wait, so I began
making up my own story and in May last year I typed it up on my computer. I
had to get up early and go to bed late to write this novel, usually spending
one hour, from 6 to 7 in the morning and 10 to 11 in the evening to write it,
averaging about 3,000 words a day."

The result was "Harry Potter and the
Showdown," a 250,000-word novel, the final version of which he placed
recently on Web sites, followed by a notice saying he was looking for
publishers. The book quickly logged 150,000 readers on a popular Chinese site,
Baidu.com's Harry Potter fan Web page.

"This is fantastic," Gu Guaiguai,
an admiring reader, wrote online about "Showdown." "I wonder if
Rowling would bother to continue to write if she had read it."

Another reader was even more breathless.
"You are the pride of our Harry Potter fans," he wrote, adding,
"We expect you to go on and write Harry Potter number eight," which
Li has in fact already begun to write. Its working title is "Harry Potter
and the Unquiet World."

For all of the reader enthusiasm, no
publishers contacted Li, a 35-year-old high school graduate who grew up in
rural Henan Province and said that he and his wife, who works at the same
factory, together make about $600 a month.

But that didn't stop his book turning up for
sale in a bound version on the streets of Beijing, Tianjin, Dalian and
Shenzhen under the imprint of the People's Literature Publishing House, the
official publisher of the Harry Potter series in China, which says it had
nothing to do with the title.

"No, we didn't publish Li Jingsheng's
novel," said Sun Shunlin, director for business development of the
People's Literature Publishing House. "You are not supposed to use the
name of Harry Potter anywhere else other than J.K. Rowling's own books. Online
novels about Harry Potter are not consistent with copyright concerns, not to
mention bound books."

Not all book editors hewed to this strict
interpretation of copyright, however. Lu Jia, whose Ba Shu publishing company
acknowledges printing one knockoff, "Harry Potter and the Chinese
Empire," but is widely believed to have printed several others, initially
said she did not wish to talk about Harry Potter. "It had problems of
intellectual property violations," she said.

Moments later, though, Lu reminisced, almost
wistfully, about the experience.

"Everything would have been fine if they
hadn't made the cover so obvious, even if you copied some sections of the
original story," she said. "But the cover was so outstanding, and
foreign people care a lot about things like that."